Moréas

Moréas, Jean Moréas (1856–1910) was a Greek-born French poet and critic who became a leading figure in the French Symbolist movement. Born in Athens, he moved to Paris where he spent most of his career and emerged as an influential literary voice in the late 19th century.

He is best known for authoring the Symbolist Manifesto, published in Le Figaro in 1886. The manifesto outlined the principles of Symbolism, emphasizing poetry governed by suggestion, musicality, and symbol rather than direct description or naturalistic detail. It helped distinguish Symbolism from Naturalism and the Parnassian school and guided subsequent generations of poets toward a poetics rooted in mood, imagery, and mystique.

Moréas’s own verse combined formal clarity with a sensuous language and imagery drawn from myth, dreams, and the arts. He contributed to Parisian literary journals and circles that fostered late-19th-century poetry, and his theoretical writings reinforced the Symbolist program, influencing both contemporaries and later practitioners who sought to heighten mood and symbolic resonance in poetry.

Dying in Paris in 1910, Moréas is remembered for his role in shaping Symbolism as a major current in French poetry at the fin de siècle. His work remains a reference point for studies of Symbolist theory and its development.